Tuesday, July 22, 2008

The Palace Prophets

A King's fatal folly: Assured by his palace prophets that his sneak attack on Ramoth-Gilead would succeed, Ahab, ruler of Israel, leads both his army and Jehosaphat's army of Judah to a crushing defeat.

(See the editorial note at the bottom of this essay.)

A wary and uneasy peace had prevailed for three years between Syria and Israel when Jehoshaphat, ruler of Judah, held a summit in Samaria with Ahab, who reigned over the Northern Kingdom of Israel.

“Hey, you know what?” Ahab asked Jehoshaphat, nudging his counterpart in the ribs. “We really ought to hook up and snatch Ramoth in Gilead away from Syria. Whadd'ya say?”

“I'm down with that,” Jehoshaphat replied, “and so are my subjects and my military – but we might want to ask what God thinks of the idea.”

Rolling his eyes in disgust, Ahab summoned his posse of prophets – all four hundred of them, who were kept on retainer by his administration. Solely for the benefit of his would-be ally, Ahab -- in a voice well-seasoned with weary indifference -- posed the question to them: “So, should I attack Ramoth-Gilead, or what?”

“Yeah, go ahead,” the court prophets replied. “God will be on your side, and stuff.”

Not surprisingly, this performance failed to convince Jehoshaphat, who was as cynical and opportunistic as the next ruler but retained a residue of genuine piety. As he examined the collection of Hierophants for hire masquerading as men of God, the King of Judah probably reflected on some version of the following thought: Take the King's shekel, follow the king's script.

“Isn't there an actual prophet of the Lord around here somewhere whom we could consult about the wisdom of going to war?” Jehoshaphat asked. This request prompted another bout of eye-rolling from Ahab.

“Well, there is this one guy, but he's not a team player,” Ahab complained. “He's such a defeatist and nay-sayer. He never says anything good about my administration, and he's outside the mainstream of prophetic thought. It's always `The Lord is displeased with your greed and corruption,' and `You are condemned by the Lord for your idolatry,' and things like that. He just dwells on the negative; he doesn't give people any hope. But I'll summon him, if you insist.”

Turning to a military aide, Ahab said: “Bring me Micaiah the son of Imlah.”

While the messenger was out fetching the prophet of the Lord, the court prophets put on a show for the amusement of Ahab and his guest, regaling them with tales of their impending military conquest. It would be a “cakewalk,” they insisted; the Syrians would be wiped out and the allied forces of Judah and Israel would hardly break a sweat.

When Micaiah was found, the royal messenger took him aside and tried to prompt him as to the message “the Lord” would offer through him.

“Look, Ahab called out the prophets, and they've reached a consensus,” the messenger explained. “They've all agreed that the war is going to be successful. So the war is going to happen; you can't change that, so you might as well try to influence the policy for good, rather than opposing it, which would just leave you marginalized anyway. This is just one of those times you have to choose the lesser of the available evils. You don't have to say exactly what the court prophets have said, but you really should let your message harmonize with theirs.”

“You don't understand, do you?” said Micaiah. “I'm not in the business of saying what the King wants to hear, or swaddling the King's policies in pious language. I'm just a messenger, like you, but my messages come from the Lord, rather than the King – and He requires that I speak only what He tells me to.”

After expelling a heavy sigh and shaking his head in resignation, the royal messenger took Micaiah back to King Ahab – and then promptly made himself scarce.

This is what all the fuss was about?!Ramoth-Gilead today.

“So, Micaiah,” Ahab said, treating him to what he thought was an intimidating look, “Should we attack Ramoth-Gilead?”

He's already made up his mind, Micaiah thought in disgust.

“Yeah, go ahead,” he said disdainfully, casting a contemptuous glance at the court prophets, who were clinging to the shadows in anticipation of a very unpleasant confrontation. “Go to war, and may the Lord prosper you.” He turned to leave, only to be find his exit blocked by the King's palace guards.

Ahab was many contemptible things, but he was not a fool, and he could recognize when he was being patronized.

“Look, why don't you tell me what the Lord says about the matter?” he said defiantly, expecting that through the force of his royal bombast he could compel the stubborn prophet to trim his sails.

“Very well,” Micaiah said, squaring his shoulders as the court prophets dove for cover. “The Lord has shown me the armies of Israel scattered in the hills, fleeing in a leaderless retreat, with every man withdrawing to his own house.”

Throwing up his hands in frustration, Ahab turned to Jehoshaphat. “Y'see? What did I tell you? He's a defeatist.”

Emboldened by the King's complaint and the fact that Michaiah was surrounded by armed guards, some of the salaried seers were able to summon a bully's simulacrum of courage. A few of them audibly rebuked Micaiah for defying the prophetic consensus.

“I mean, who is this guy to say that he's right, and we're wrong?” one of the pink-slip prophets protested, his elongated sibilants testifying of both the softness of his lifestyle and the dubiousness of his masculinity.

Boldly approaching the King, Michaiah prophesied:

“The ... men you hired didn't ask God about the truth," Michaiah declared. "They wanted to enlist Him to support their ruler's ambitions. God doesn't lie, but sometimes, after we persist in lying long enough He simply lets us live with the consequences of our deceit."

"As for me," Michaiah continued, pausing to shoot a look at the cringing "prophets" before resuming, "I saw the Lord in vision on his throne, surrounded by the host of heaven. The Lord permitted a lying spirit to work through Ahab's prophets to persuade the king to embark on this stupid war."

At this, Zedekiah – the royal prophet who had complained about Michaiah's presumption – strode up to the Lord's prophet and hit him flush on the jaw. The result was more of an insult than an injury.

“So, was it a lying spirit from the Lord that made me deliver that message to you?” Zedekiah sneered, only to feel every particle of boldness leave him as Michaiah's eyes, radiating the composed courage of a man who knows the truth and is at peace with it, pierced the poseur's pretenses.

Truth vs. "Consensus":Michaiah boldly prophesies against the aggressive war being plotted by Ahab and Jehosaphat.

“You're brave enough when the King and his bodyguards have your back,” Michaiah told Zedekiah, his voice the quiet but penetrating rumble of a distant, fast-approaching thunderstorm. “But I can see a day when you'll be cowering in a corner, whimpering in fear.”

“Take this guy and throw him in prison, until I return victorious!” Ahab commanded.

As a brace of bodyguards started to march Michaiah out of the throne room, the Lord's prophet shrugged his arms free and turned to utter one final warning.

“You won't return at all from this war,” he told Ahab. “If you do, you'll know that the Lord had nothing to do with my prophecy.”

Shortly thereafter, Ahab and Jehoshaphat struck out for Ramoth-Gilead.

Before the assault began, Ahab – perhaps haunted by Michaiah's prophecy – decided to hedge his bets. “You know what -- I've got an idea,” Ahab told his ally. “I'm going to disguise myself as a common soldier. Why don't you make yourself a more conspicuous target by parading around in your royal finery.”

We're not told what Jehoshaphat's reaction was to this self-serving proposal (I'd wager it involved the ancient equivalent of a barnyard epithet), but he did as he asked – with predictable consequences.

The Syrian king had told his military leaders to ignore the rank and file and concentrate on finding Ahab. In short order Jehoshaphat was swarmed by the Syrian hosts.

“Hey, I'm not the guy you're looking for!” Jehosaphat yelped.

The Syrian charioteers, seeing that this was true, wheeled about and resumed their pursuit of the disguised Ahab.

Meanwhile, some undistinguished Syrian conscript drew back on his bow and let fly at random. “I shot an arrow into the air,” as it were – and the deadly projectile hit the disguised Ahab in a seam of his armor, mortally wounding him.

With Ahab dead and Jehoshaphat's battlefield leadership compromised, the Israelite army fell apart, each man retreating to the security of his home, just as Micaiah had prophesied.

The object of sharing this rather emancipated paraphrase of I Kings 22 is to underscore the moral and practical futility of seeking wisdom from religious leaders who are on the state's payroll, or who covet the power that comes from proximity to the politically powerful.

I do not intend to interpolate my own views into the Scripture, but from what I know of human nature it seems likely that many of the payola prophets who took part in Ahab's “Faith-Based Initiative” probably believed that their compromises were necessary in order to advance some worthwhile objective or another. After all, working in partnership with the government is the key to getting things done, isn't it?

Here's a critically important principle: In any “public/private partnership,” the state is always the senior partner. When Christian leaders are on Caesar's payroll, they have to render to him things to which he is not entitled. And when Caesar's tactical priorities change, those religious leaders who thought they could co-opt the power of the state to do good will discover, to their dismay, that the state has co-opted them, leaving it stronger and more hostile toward the values those leaders supposedly served.

Opportunistic parasites: If this shark makes a meal of these helpless scuba divers, the remora it hosts will feed well, too.

For a generation, the putatively Christian Right has attached itself to the Republican Party like a remora on a Great White. During the reign of King George the Dimmer, tens of millions of dollars taxpayer money was lavished on various "Christian" groups run by religious allies of the GOP.

In many instances, the grants display every appearance of being vulgar pay-outs to shepherds more interested in herding their flocks to the polls on behalf of Republicans, rather than speaking the truth and tending to the needs of wounded souls.

Doubtless groups of this sort consider flatter themselves by thinking that they are “light and salt” to the world. But Christians who develop a taste for the state's subsidy are salt that will soon lose its savor.

Consider the fact that Bush was able to mislead the United States into a patently unjust and undeniably evil war in Iraq without provoking a protest from so much as a single significant Evangelical leader. Indeed, the conduct of major Evangelical figures in conferring their benediction on the Iraq war was more than a little reminiscent of the behavior of Ahab's palace prophets.

Chief among the GOP's Palace Prophets is Dr. James Dobson of Focus on the Family.

A bespectacled, middle-aged man with a Dick Van Patten comb-over and the adenoidal whine of a natural-born scold, Dr. Dobson commands a large and vastly influential media empire headquartered in Colorado Springs.

A decade ago, Dobson declared that he was finished with the Republican Party, citing efforts by the GOP to built a "Big Tent" with socially liberal politicians and activists. Yet after the Bushling was installed as ruler, Dobson managed to cut and stitch his convictions to meet the prevailing fashion.

One key example was Dobson's rationalization for Bush's executive order of July 2001 authorizing limited federal funding of embryonic stem cell experimentation -- a decision condemned by many pro-life figures, but supported by Dobson.

Like many of his comrades, Dobson endorsed the war of choice in Iraq. In a letter responding to one of his critics, Dobson permitted a spokesman to explain on his behalf that while the war wasn't strictly defensive, "this may be one of those moments in history when we are forced to settle for a trade-off: the lives of the few in exchange for the lives of the many. This is always tragic in the extreme; and yet we must face the fact that even more deaths and greater sufferings would probably have ensued if Saddam had been allowed to pursue his mad course of oppression, aggression, and self-aggrandizement."

This isn't a statement growing out of Christian ethics; it's a rationalization rooted in utilitarianism, and nourished by unadulterated falsehood. Saddam's regime, evil as it was, committed not a single act of international aggression without either the active support, or knowing permission, of Washington. How a fifth-rate dictatorship penned inside two no-fly zones -- a regime that didn't even control all of its own territory for a dozen years -- could be described as pursuing a course of "aggression ... and self-aggrandizement" isn't obvious to un-Hannitized minds.

One would think that Dobson, given his, ahem, focus on the family, would take issue with the damage the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq are doing to families -- children left fatherless, motherless, or orphaned outright; women being deployed in combat roles; husbands and wives deployed simultaneously; the financial burdens of prolonged overseas service, and the resulting disruption of marriages and families; the maimed and mangled young bodies, the invisible but just as grievous injury to thousands of traumatized minds....

As I said, one would think that Dobson would take issue with at least some of this. One would be wrong.

Given his incontinent zeal to support war and bloodshed abroad, Dobson would seem to be a natural supporter of John McCain. Yes, there are some disagreements between them regarding gay "marriage," the McCain-Feingold restrictions on campaign speech, and other matters.

But, hey -- Pat Robertson, the only serious competition Dobson faces for primacy among the GOP's Palace Prophets, managed to choke down his bile and support Rudolph Giuliani, who not only supports the social agenda of left-wing hedonism, he lives it. Robertson's excuse, of course, was that the "war on terror" trumps all other issues.

But Dobson was different where McCain was concerned. Dobson was resolute -- immovable as the Himalayas, as fixed as the Northern Star: "I would not vote for John McCain under any circumstances," Dobson declared during a January 2007 radio interview.

Well, guess what?

Mountains, like the continents themselves, can move. The "fixed" stars are nothing of the sort. And Dobson's position on McCain has, ah, evolved. 'Course, it takes millennia for those natural changes to take place. Dobson's position on McCain changed in about a year and a half.

"There's nothing dishonorable in a person rethinking his or her positions, especially in a constantly changing political context," Dobson rationalized in a statement given to the Associated Press. "Barack Obama contradicts and threatens everything I believe about the institution of the family and what is best for the nation. His radical positions on life, marriage and national security force me to reevaluate the candidacy of our only other choice, John McCain."

Rather than telling the truth without fear or favor, we see Dobson embracing the role rejected by the prophet Michaiah in the midrash examined earlier: He's choosing what he believes to be the lesser of the available evils, as dictated by the prevailing consensus.

Actually, as I've pointed out before, the "lesser" evil isn't; when it is chosen it is always the greater evil, because it's the one that is actually done, rather than serving as a convenient rhetorical device.

Regarding every matter of public consequence, John McCain and Barack Obama -- for all their differences in style (Obama actually has one; McCain does not) are entirely fungible. They are both products of the bipartisan corporatist consensus, surrounded by retainers from the Power Elite and devoted to enhancing the Welfare/Warfare/Homeland Security State. Neither poses any threat to the existing architecture of power.

Whichever is elected will become the latest in a long line of presidential perjurers when he takes the oath of office next January.

Perhaps the only substantive difference between them is that one is a sleeper agent for the Jihad, the other for the Vietnamese. I'm only kidding. I hope.

Innocent blood: What do "pro-lifers" like James Dobson say about the death and mutilation of these Iraqi children as a result of Mr. Bush's war of choice?

But I suspect that Dobson's chief complaint against Obama is that his election would result in the installation of a different cohort of Palace Prophets.

Many of Obama's critics believe that the much-criticized Jeremiah Wright would be prominent in that group. I suspect the opposite would be the case: For all of his theological errors and misguided political views, Rev. Wright did give voice to unpopular but sound criticisms of Washington's imperialist foreign policy.

Genuine, principled critics of political corruption aren't welcome in the Emperor's court, and they usually have more integrity than to seek a position of that sort in the first place.

The first part of this essay is adapted from an earlier version published on March 23, 2006 in the old Birch Blog. I wish to emphasize that

the style in which the first section is written is in no way intended to convey disrespect for its Source, and any embellishments that appear in this version are not to be taken literally – although the story, in its original form, is the literal truth.

19 comments:

"Regarding every matter of public consequence, John McCain and Barack Obama are entirely fungible. They are both ... devoted to enhancing the Welfare/Warfare/Homeland Security State."

Word. Although smashing the color bar which has reserved the presidency for white males would be a worthy advancement, Barack Obama already has convinced me that he's unfit to serve:

1. In a meeting with Cleveland, Ohio Jewish leaders, Obama said there are thirty, forty or fifty thousand America-hating militants who have to be tracked down and killed by the U.S. military. He effectively endorsed Bush's policy of executive-ordered summary executions.

2. After promising last year to filibuster the telecoms bill which provided criminal immunity for Bush's confessed felony violations of the FISA Act, this month Obama voted for cloture (i.e., to break the filibuster) and for the bill. This is more "professional courtesy" of the sort that Nancy Putalosi extended by taking impeachment off the table.

3. Obama's simplistic "Iraq bad war; Afghanistan good war" riff proves that he has been hopelessly co-opted by the warfare state. Moving troops from Iraq to Afghanistan guarantees another four years of a costly, lethal, debilitating quagmire in a distant hellhole which constitutes no threat to the U.S.

By casting himself in Lyndon Johnson's career-wrecking role of war president (or worse, the "commander in chief" role pioneered by the drunken AWOL reservist Bush) in a hopeless guerrilla conflict, Obama's presidency is over before he's even nominated. He's a one-termer.

Barack Obama, I hereby crown you CAESAR OBAMA, Viceroy of Vietghanistan. Like Ahab, you're badly advised by your war-mongering rabble of Beltway insiders. If you had listened to Rev. Wright -- your Micaiah -- you coulda been a contender, son.

IMO The true prophets are those that rally the faithful at ground level - persons of whatever religious stripe or none, persons of universal goodwill, those whose minds are fixed upon Natural Justice above all, & therefore those who concentrate our minds on how to go about developing a fundamentally different, and socially just way of organising human society for rich and poor alike to that which currently prevails.

And who therefore call those self-same people to start building new, independent, self-governing social/spiritual/economic *non-sectarian* communities based on the universal principles of mutual human support, direct democratic sovereignty over shared geography, liberty of 'the below' in common cause (& not 'the above' / palace prophets), shared stewardship of the locality we inhabit, and a broad, commonsense human spirituality (of love toward all brethren). Without much fuss, God is in the Great I Am, and this is enough to remember when we confront one another's differences, and work through them, & we don't need any more public religion than that!

For revolutionary sovereignty we need all comers in the area to get together, and not just one religious group, and this is of fundamental importance, IMO.

All: rich, poor, man, woman and even child, Christian, Muslim, Jew, Buddhist, Atheist or other, ALL must be able to take part equally in decision making about the area. No more tricks, private meetings behind church doors. ALL must decide together, patiently and delibertatively how to spend shared revenue from the area they share, how to work the assets in common, how to be a team for the greater good of all. In solidarity with each other at the human, neighbourhood level but also with others doing the same elsewhere. A world in a community and a world community of believeres in a just order.

So that we can have genuine egalite, fraternite and not just liberte for the rich (whether 'hard working' or no)

At the same time the lOve of Jesus' (I count myself among you, lovers of Jesus, for as a Muslim believer how can I not?) and especially his last days before state execution can be simply, subtly honoured (as IMO he would want it) by food sharing and silence worship/contemplation while eating + before and after each political meeting

(to remember the mystic body of God/the mystery of Creation that embues all things!)

ps thanks for another interesting post. btw where you say “Hey, I'm not the guy you're looking for!” Ahab yelped do you not mean the other guy, jehosephat or whatever his name is? or did i muddle the story up in my mind

also, in response to the Tom Paine quote at Mr Grigg's Women and Children Last (btw Dixie Dog I have replied to your reply, in brief & solely focused on yr proposal vis a vis how we organise) from a female colleague, also based in the UK:

"In saying:

'the works of God in the creation preach to us another doctrine. In that vast volume we see nothing to give us the idea of a changeable, passionate, vindictive God; everything we there behold impresses us with a contrary idea - that of unchangeableness and of eternal order, harmony, and goodness.

"The sun and the seasons return at their appointed time, and everything in the creation claims that God is unchangeable,'

Payne shows a remarkeable similarity with certain passages in the Qur'an that refer to harmony in nature as evidence for God's existence and consistency, for example:

36:38-40; And [they have a sign in] the sun: it runs in an orbit of its own [19] [and] that is laid down by the will of the Almighty, the All-Knowing; and [in] the moon, for which We have determined phases [which it must traverse] till it becomes like an old date-stalk, dried-up and curved: and] neither may the sun overtake the moon, nor can the night usurp the time of day, [21] since all of them float through space [in accordance with Our laws].

See also 55:5 [At His behest] the sun and the moon run their appointed courses; the plants and the trees submit to his designs.

I doubt Payne ever actually read the Qur'an, since few translations were available at that time, but if he had, he might have found it closer to his own rationalist deism than he would have expected"

One other item: unless I have missed something, every time Israel allies herself with and depends on another nation militarily, they are defeated and so is the nation that Israel depended on. America should not defend Israel militarily and Christians need to realize that God is the one who defends Israel. We should not presume that we are his agents for her defense.

Woe to them that go down to Egypt for help; and stay on horses, and trust in chariots, because they are many; and in horsemen, because they are very strong; but they look not unto the Holy One of Israel, neither seek the LORD! Yet he also is wise, and will bring evil, and will not call back his words: but will arise against the house of the evildoers, and against the help of them that work iniquity. Now the Egyptians are men, and not God; and their horses flesh, and not spirit. When the LORD shall stretch out his hand, both he that helpeth shall fall, and he that is holpen shall fall down, and they all shall fail together. For thus hath the LORD spoken unto me, Like as the lion and the young lion roaring on his prey, when a multitude of shepherds is called forth against him, he will not be afraid of their voice, nor abase himself for the noise of them: so shall the LORD of hosts come down to fight for mount Zion, and for the hill thereof. As birds flying, so will the LORD of hosts defend Jerusalem; defending also he will deliver it; and passing over he will preserve it. Isaiah 31:1-5

The secular Republican establishment keeps calling Dr. Dobson's bluff and he keeps blinking. Each time he does it, the GOP establishment moves further away from his desired policies and displays even more contempt for Christian right leaders and voters. And why not, if they let themselves be so abused?

I will say on Jim Dobson's behalf that at least he tries to bluff them, much of the rest of the Christian right has sold out so thoroughly that they can't even manage a bluff of protest. I perceive they are now falling under judgment in their ministries- for it is written that judgment begins with the House of God.

God will raise up other Micaiahs in His own time. As for the palace prophets, I feel like at least one of them must have had doubts about towing the party line. One of them was the last to reluctantly agree to tow it. Perhaps they had misgivings, but in the end they went with the wishes of the king. Does James Dobson now seek the role of that last reluctant false prophet?

We should not pour contempt on Dr. Dobson, but respect and pray for him. It is clear he has struggled over this. He is right on the line from being the most reluctant palace prophet to being the most reluctant Godly prophet. That line is not thin, it is as wide as the chasm between heaven and hell, and I pray he chooses God's will in it.

Yes, Dobson is a disgrace and I cringe to think of the price hewill one day pay for hisduplicity in the destruction of thevery Church he proclaims to love.

The last broadcast of FOTF I listend to (the very last I willever listen to) wasafter the White House meeting you referred to. Dobson stated onthe air that the meetingwas secret and he couldn't tell thelisteners what was spoken. I wasflabergasted and enlightened in thesame moment.This is a driect contradiction ofour Lord Jesus Christ who statedflatly, "I have spoken nothing insecret."

One of the few truism's to come from Marx is that 'religion is the opiate of the masses'. It has been my observation that those who truly follow the ideals of their supposed religious beliefs are generally anonymous as their piety is a private matter, those who wear it on their sleeves are typically dangerous hypocrites - and so it has been through all of recorded history (or at least that portion that I have read).

Why would anyone be surprised that it has happened again?

The sorry state that this country is in today is the result of mass group-think and the thumping hypocrites anointed George the Lesser as their standard bearer - twice - and bear a great deal of shame for having done so.

Is it any wonder that those such as myself view ism's/anity's as the bane of human existence in spite of the good people that follow them?

Mr. Anonymous, are you somehow monitoring the pre-posted comments I receive via e-mail? If not, how do you purport to know that I'm "censoring" them?

My policy has always been to post all comments directed at this blog, apart from a) spam (which quickly fills up the threads if I don't moderate them), or b)overt, unnecessary vulgarity, particularly profanity involving the Name of the Deity.

Those who post comments here are perfectly free to malign, upbraid, contradict, execrate, vilify, or otherwise assail me or my opinions as they see fit, assuming that they possess sufficient literary ability to do so within the very generous guidelines described above.

That policy is as American as a hot dog consumed at a baseball park in Iowa on the Fourth of July.

Just checking. Having left a comment some time ago (that did not contain profanity) and having it not appear, I wondered if censorship was being practiced. Further, I had no knowledge of who monitors this blog. Mea culpa.

Will, I've seen so many pictures of kids maimed or killed in Iraq to make me numb. To the media and most Americans it's as though it has never happened. And to the "Prez", his wannabees and the like.... they couldn't care less.

Looks like it has to come home to roost before the synapses start firing and people wake up. Still, I harbor little hope that any sense may seep into their noggins. Seeing as they're glued to the "idiot box" and taking orders accordingly.

An acquaintance of mine who told me something fits the topic of this discussion. He considers himself a secular humanist/socialist (but not fully socialist). Since I am a Christian, our discussions help me to understand my faith in a meaningful way. He asked me why Christians flock to the Republican Party. In addition, he told me that the Republican Party treats the Christian Church like a prostitute. They buy a few favors, treat you nicely for a short time, and then they kick you back in the gutter. They promise you everything, but they deliver you nothing. This secular humanist asked me why Christians let this happen. I told him I did not know the answer to that question. It is sad, that we have lost our moral compass and the fortitude to stand up for what is right and not embrace the popular opinions, polls, and phony prophets of the times.

I read this on 1/02/12 after a Facebook re-posting of it by Mr. Grigg. I am surprised that there is no mention of the then VERY contemporary examples of the infamous Pat Robertson endorsement of Gulianni, Fundy Bob Jones Univ cozying up to flip flopping Mormon Romney earlier in late '07 and who can forget Huckaboob?

Not a good record for the big names. Maybe that is why we never read of para-church ministries in Scripture.